Farris

Farris, on what is now Ranch Road 2690 thirteen miles north of Uvalde, was named for Charles Jefferson Farris, who moved to the area with his brother and a nephew in 1891. Farris subsequently bought the other two men out and expanded the original holding of 1,500 acres to 5,000 acres. Most of his prosperity was from cotton, but he also raised cattle, horses, and mules. He married Ida Rutland in 1893 and took her to live at the ranch in 1894. The couple had six children. In 1907 or 1908 Farris replaced his original four-room home with a two-story, ten-room house made of concrete blocks manufactured on the site. He built a barn and silos of the same material. The community of Farris grew up on land that Farris sold. In the first decade of the 1900s he donated an acre for the establishment of a school, which was named after him. The one-room schoolhouse also served as a community center and as a meetingplace for the Church of Christ, of which the Farrises and many of their neighbors were members. For summer revivals held under the nearby brush arbor, preachers and song leaders would come from as far away as Austin and would get their room and board at the Farris home. In 1935 the school closed, and students were bused to Uvalde. As paved roads entered the area and the means of transportation improved, residents moved away, and the community disappeared. Only the lower story of the Farris ranchhouse was still standing in 1990.